The Buddha was distributing shares to the animals. One wolf was chasing an antelope when he heard about it. He abandoned his chase and impetuously came running before the Buddha, panting heavily. The Buddha told the wolf that it had missed its share by coming late. The Buddha said you have to get food using your power. Kill and eat one of each thousand animals. But the wolf had turned away too quickly and misheard the Buddha thinking the Buddha had told him to “leave one animal from a thousand.” Since that time in order to observe the Buddha’s scripture the wolf kills animals in numbers.
I tell you the truth in this fairy tale,
But I can’t make you believe it.
A wolf running into a herd of sheep will bite off the fatty tails of severa wethers. Some years ago while I was searching for the white wolf, I spent several days at the family station of herdsman Dechinjurmed in Mongonmorit county, Central province. During my five days there, a wolf attacked the sheep herd each of the four nights. We walked around all night, crying out in order to protect the sheep herd but each morning we would find two or three sheep without tails. We were unable to explain this phenomenon. One morning two sheep were found with their tails cut off and a third was left with what looked like half a tail. When we took a closer look we saw that only the cover-skin remained and the meat of the tail was gone. Only the tail skin remained hanging down. Legend has it that if a wolf manages to make hundred animals bleed in a day it will be excluded from the race of wolves. If a wolf bites an animal, I believe that animal will surely either die or be thoroughly cured. Wolf teeth are poisonous that way.
Mongolians can heal those wounds, however. In a famous book about curing diseases of the five kinds of Mongolian livestock, it is written that a wolf tongue is best for a wolf wound, or else the ash of the jishingarav will help. Jishingarav is a greenish brown flower from the Gobi desert with points as sharp as hedgehog’s needles. This flower should be studied more as its ash is so helpful to healing several kinds of wounds. If a wolf bites a dog one should apply to wound a compress soaked with curd dissolved in whey. Rabbit skin can also be applied.”
The wolf is, of course an outstanding hunter. A good hunter must have a good weapon. The wolf’s weapon is its teeth. One Mongolian proverb says “you can tell a falcon by its talons and a wolf its fangs“. Its common knowledge around here that the predatory wolf has a strong molar. Four of the wolf’s fangs curve inward. Each end in three points pass each other as closely as scissor blades. When an animal is bitten by a wolf it pulls away and a wolf pulls back the wolfs digging further and hooking in instead of slipping out.
When I saw a wolf skin with head attached hanging as decoration on the wall of Sodnomdovz, the general secretary of the red cross society I measured its fang and found it to be 2cm and 30 mm. And this was an old wolf with worn out teeth and broken fangs. Just think, an old and worn out tooth still that long. Batjargal a photo correspondent carefully keeps one fang that his mother passed down to him. The root of the fang alone measures 3.4 cm and tooth itself another 2.2 cm. When I saw this fang kept by Batjargal there involuntarily came the thought to my mind that nothing bitten by such a fang would be able to escape.
Another Mongolian saying if a wolf lets bitten prey escape the prey will surely starve.
And: a wolf without tail with starve to death as a lama without a temple will become mendicant. But why should a wolf without a tail starve to death? People neve say a word for no reason. The writer Baast told me Its said that the ears and tail of the wolf both transmit nine signals. The tail is refined sensibility of balance without which it would be difficult for the wolf to survive. To rescue its own life from the dangers awaiting it every step every one of the wolf’s organs plays an important role. The wolf’s neck for example is quite thick. When you skin a wolf you can see that most of the strongest muscles wind up the neck. The wolf’s skull is small yet its head is bulbous and heavy this is due to those muscles. The wolf that hunter Dechunjurmed killed had centimeters thick muscles on the lower jaw which gives you an idea of the strength of the wolf’s bite.
The most important organ for the wolf’s survival though is its nose. Wolves rely more on their noses than on their eyes. Upon seeing a person wolf trots without too much of a hurry but upon scenting them it runs away at full speed. A wolf grows old but its nose does not became a proverb because of the dependence of a wolf’s survival on this sense of smell. The wind helps the wolf is another one. To sense danger while hunting the wolf stalks upwind of its prey. The animal trainer Amgalan said that if a dog distinguishes between two thousand scents the wolf can distinguish twice as many. If a drench myself with perfume or drink alcohol and approach my wolf it does not recognize me and growls at me. When it then hears my voice it acts astonished like it does not believe its me. Similarly if you are a nonsmoker and then begin to smoke your wolf won’t accept you. One time Amgalan performed with his wolf in Russia. In front row sat a drunken Russian and a wolf attacked him. Thanks to the Russian regulation prohibiting drunken people to attend the performances of beasts there were no serious consequences for Amgalan.
Here again I’ll quote the hunter Choton: The wolves of forested mountain areas aren’t as swift so they tend to kill animals by rounding them up relying on the advantage of herd numbers. Wolves do find clever ways to get around this problem. Here (the town of Berkhtsagaan in Tunkhel county, Selenge province) wolves can’t keep up with deer. So at dawn when the deer’s bladders are filled with urine they attack. Steppe wolves use similar methods. My father wrote a letter to me about steppe wolves and how they designate one wolf to attack antelope at dawn before the antelope have had a chance to get up and urinate.
The brain of the wolf houses quite a developed intellect. When I weighed the brain of a ten year old wolf killed by the hunter Dechinjurmed, it weighed at 100 grams and was 11 cm long 8 cm wide and 4 cm high. A sheep brain is larger than wolf’s brain and weighs as much which makes me believe that intelectual capacity does not depend on the size and weight of the brain. The wolf’s brain however has so many convolutions that they can’t be counted. The same can’t be said for the sheep brain which has far less. The wolf’s brain is not larger but it is better developed.
Wolves use quick mind and efficient methods to kill prey. They adjust their methods according to the kind of livestock they are hunting. For example to catch a camel a wolf will lay down in front of the camel and begin to turn over. When the camel approaches and lowers its head to sniff the wolf attacks the camel’s throat and hangs by the fangs from its neck. An article from democracy newspaper states: Some wolves specialize in killing camels. For example in shine jinst county bayankhongor province there was a wolf known by the name of Split-paws that ate sventy camels. In the Gobi’s zeolite a wolf called Shred-Foot killed one hundred fifty camels over five years. To catch a cattle a wolf will penetrate a herd of cattle and run amot them. The cattle try to butt the wolf with their horns and the wolf then runs into the forest turning around to jump at at the throat of the cattle pursuing it. In Batsumber county, central province there still lives a wolf called ash gray that specializes in killing cattle. In Jargalant county Bayankhongor province there lives a wolf with one front paw cut by a trap who still sneaks into to fold at night to attack floks of sheep. More proverbs: Where there are sheep there are wolves. A person with sheep also has wolves. Wolves need to eat and sheep need to be eaten. This proverbs seem to justify the wolf’s struggle to survive, indeed Mongolian herders are not as upset at the loss of sheep to wolf than they are loss of sheep to a thief. Mongols according to their national system and faith believe theft to have the most harmful consequence of attracting misfortune. Mongols, you may have noticed are fond of expressing their thoughts through aphorisms they like to say wolf has a white mouth and thief black hands. In it recorded that in 1944 wolves killed 51,633 head of livestock in Mongolia though I don’t know how this census was taken. Its possible that some state farm herders could have blamed the notorious wolf for animal casualties actually caused by their own idleness and inability to protect their animals from things like snowstorms. A poster issued in May 1965 by the Ministry of Agriculture states that a wolf eats 3000 kilograms of meat a year.
Its impossible to list every way the wolf has contrived to catch every animal but I would like to quote here what the poet Nyamaa told me Wolves never catch sleeping animals. To kill an animal while it sleeps for such a courageous beast as the wolf is pure meanness. That it contests its courage and power with other waking animals is proof of the wolf’s honesty. The hunter Choton agreed The wolf always catches those animals which run from him. If an animal does not run from him he does not attack. If there are several horses and they do not startle or run away the wolf does not attack. The wolf will try repeatedly to frighten them and if they can’t be frightened the wolf simply rounds them up urinates several times and leaves. Wolves are clever and guileful so they think that any animal who does not take fright at them must be dangerous. Nyamaa may have contrived his story at an onset of his inspired mind. If so, I don’t blame him that’s why he is poet. On the other hand livestock breeding hunter such as Choton might take to blaming wolves as vengeance for the loss of his livestock to them. I believe that Mongolian’s who try to blame the wolf actually praise it. Why does the wolf waken sleeping animals before giving chase? But we can’t ask the wolf we can only consider the notes of people. When giving chase to a large animal the wolf pulls it down at the moment all four legs of its prey are off the ground. Once eleven wolves gave chase to our chestnut horse Choton recounted. The horse after being bitten once in the thigh by the wolf learned from the experience and begun to trot away. While it was trotting one wolf tried again to bite but the horse kicked him down hard. The wolves eventually retreated one by one. Next day when my chestnut horse rejoined the herd with its wolf fang wound I traced its tracks. When a horse trots its legs touch the ground in turns. If a leg is on the ground it gives the horse to support to kick with another leg. When it gallops all four hooves leave the ground at once and it can’t kick. Our chestnut felt this. Wolves are clever but then so are horses.
Then as if to prove his own words, Choton continued I saw two wolves chasing a deer. Their tracks later showed that the deer was running in long leaps, with a wolf on either side. Crossing about a one meter wide stream, the deer’s hind legs slipped a little. At this very moment the wolf caught the deer’s thigh. The wolf rarely misses such axact moments of opportunity. Heated by his recollections, Choton spoke again. Wolves are quite skilled at catching marmots too. I was on Five Hills Mountain near Ulaanbaatar in autumn. I was watching a wolf through binoculars. Five or six marmots were crazing on the side of the slope. The wolf sniffed their tracks and ran at them from behind a hiillock. The marmots didn’t notice the wolf running and waving its tail the same way hunters wave their arms to provoke marmots. But then they did notice and startled whizzed around. The wolf caught a big one and carried it away in its mouth.
The fortuneteller Byambasuren told me about a wolf he had seen in autumn waving and provoking marmots to whistle before catching one. People probably learned from the wolf how to provoke marmots by waving before taking aim. In under Khangai county Uvs province there is a place called brown mount Byambasuren said. There a hunter called Noseless Banzragch lived in our neighborhood. One day when I was ten years old I followed him. He was looking through his binoculars. He handed me the binoculars and said Look son there’s wolf stalking marmot. It was spring. One marmot grazed near its hole. The wolf craped near. When the marmot lifted its head the wolf froze and when it went back to grazing the wolf went back to creeping closer and closer. One way wolves catch prey is by chasing them up to ridges of steep rocks and cliffs forcing the prey toward a lethal fall. In Batshireet county Khentei province there is a steep cliff called onion Bluff. Wolves drive deer to that cliff and let them fall. The hunter Tsevegav told me of a time he saw five wolves forcing a deer to fall. The cliff is called Bars Rock. The wolves drove the deer toward the cliff baring their teeth and growling. The deer retreated backward and fell down the cliff. The wolves looked from the top of the cliff down at the fallen deer then descended to eat it. In a place called white stupa in South Gobi province I saw that wolves had forced a horse to fall down a rock. Wolves also drive animals into closed ravines to catch them. This method of wolves to catch their prey was noted back in the thirteenth century. In the secret history of the Mongols it is written that without food Bodanchar had to creep and shoot with his bow and arrow a deer restrained by wolves in a closed ravine.
The hunter Choton observed The wolf does not ear by tearing off meat as a dog does, but instead pushes meat forward and rolls it out in long strips with its eyes tightly closed. After eating a strip the wolf looks up at its ever-present companion the crow sitting in a tree. If the crow is quite the wolf closes his eyes and goes back to rolling out the meat. The honored artist of application Tsermaa who teaches at Gandantegchileng Monastery Art school of Buddha said “When I was a child, I drove our sheep to pasture. A wolf killed one of our two year old lambs. I was frightened and stood beside the sheep watching the wolf eating the lamb. The wolf’s eyes were tightly closed. Why do wolves eat the meat thus, by rolling out strips? Because if it tears off the meat blood will spray into its eyes. If blood gets into its eyes the wolf will become blind. Perhaps the wolf fears this. Or perhaps it is legend. But nature conceals innumerable secrets. As a non biologist I am unable to decipher those secret yet… when a wolf sees a running wheatear it will know where a suslik is. I would like to mention here the wonderful instinct of the wolf to find food using the harmony between animals that keeps them near to each other.
In reality even biologists will have difficulty explaining all of the wolf’s behaviors. When a wolf kills an animal it first puts the stomach to the side. There are legends about this.
One she wolf found a nude baby. To warm him the she wolf killed a sheep took out the sheep’s stomach and put the baby in the warm carcass. Then she took him to her den and fed him. From that time on wolves never eat the stomach of their prey.
A wolf caught a sheep and after it took out the sheep’s stomach intact and laid it aside a hunter appeared. The wolf hid behind the stomach and so survived, and that’s why the wolf takes out the stomach and leaves it untouched because it can be useful in a pinch.
My people have very good imaginations.
Anyhow when a wolf kills an animal it leaves only the stomach feet and head. If the animal is pregnant it leaves the fetus also. Why? The wolf is greedy as shark. It must be able to digest what it eats if it is that greedy. This is why Mongols say that if someone can eat anything they have a wolf stomach. Really the stomach of a wolf contains every possible thing. Its quite usual to find the head of a large animals femur in a wolf stomach. These pieces of leather which had four layers had become as round as coins and soft as cysts. In one wolf stomach were found seventeen whole mice so putrefied they made the hunters vomit. Another wolf stomach was filled with locusts. But eating is an art. Wolves know it. In Naran county, Sukhbaatar province at a winter site called Boor one wolf killed a horse ate its flesh until the bones were clean crushed the bones sucked out the marrow and left. The young herder Ganbold saw it and the writer Tumur wrote a newspaper article about it called Marrow eating Wolf in “Ardiin Erkh newspaper”. Some wolf behavior no one can explain. Its been reported that wolves trapped a herd of horses in a closed ravine then did not kill them but leapt over them while urinating. Choton told me grandfather had no son so my mother guarded the horse herd in her youth. When she was seventeen she was sleeping by the horse herd in the night. A wolf jumped over her two or three times and then left. Why would a wolf jump over its prey without attacking it? Does it really happen?
A french girl named Marali Schneider walked several hundred miles alone in Mongolia. On her first night in Matad county, she lay down to sleep in the open. She wrote:
Suddenly I heard a wolf howling nearby. I thought I was dreaming. The wolf howled three times. It was a moonless night. The wolf was real. I rose noiselessly. There were three wolves. It occurred to me that if I lay down amidst hundreds of antelope the wolves would go for the antelope first. I’d heard that wolves only chase animals that run away from them. When wolves approach one must lie quietly then the wolves think one is wounded animal and go in search of healthy prey. This I had read in a book. The wolves would ignore me if I lay down surrounded by five hundred antelope. I lay down and fell into a deep sleep. What could I do otherwise?
I got up early in the morning and dressed. The wolves were gone. After eating, wolves go to sleep in a hidden place. The never all sleep at once. if two out of three wolves are sleeping then the third is standing guard. The wolf on guard gets sleepy too, beginning to stagger and almost fall in drowsiness. But then it stretches to revive itself and looks around again after a while becoming a drowsy. The hunter Chimeddagva said “Maybe wolves get drunk off animal blood”. They sleep very soundly after. Once I tracked a young wolf and found it thirty kilometers away sleeping soundly. Not even car wheels approaching woke it up.
Mongols used to use wolves as hunters. In the thirteenth century the Italian Marco Polo wrote: Great khan also has many wolves which are very experienced hunters.
